The Queen Against Owen

by Allen Upward

Then Sir Daniel proceeded to go into the evidence at great length, reading passages here and there from his notes. When he came to the evidence of the servant Rees, he threw out a suggestion which struck doubt into many a mind which had till then believed in the prisoner’s innocence.

‘A very great deal in this case undoubtedly turns on this evidence as to footsteps. You may, I think, take it as admitted on all hands, by the prisoner’s counsel as well as by the prosecution, that the witness is correct in saying that she heard the prisoner leave the house. That she recognised her walk correctly that time there can be no manner of doubt. Then we come to the second time, when she heard footsteps ascending the stairs. And I may pause here to remark that I think a quite exaggerated importance has been attached to the discrepancy between the witness’s ideas of time and the correct idea. Gentlemen, we should all of us fail if we strove to indicate with accuracy the length of a given interval of time. We use the expressions “five minutes” and “ten minutes” in ordinary conversation, without attaching any very definite meaning to them, and, therefore, I cannot see that the witness is in any way discredited if she mistook a period of three minutes for one of ten, or vice versâ.’

The jury nodded approval. Now they were on firm ground.

‘But it is her answer to Mr. Pollard, when he asked her as to the second set of footsteps, that I wish to draw your attention to. She said, as I took it, “I did not notice them”—that is, the footsteps—“but I think they must have been Miss Owen’s, or else I should have noticed the difference.” Now, I think you will see the importance of that.’ (The jury try to see it, and, failing in that, try to look as if they saw it, and fail a second time.) ‘Remember the state of things is this: the witness is wide awake; she has just been down to the front-door and up again, and ten minutes after, or three minutes only according to Mr. Tressamer, she hears someone come in and walk upstairs. Now, gentlemen, under those circumstances, one would naturally expect the witness to be on the alert to distinguish any difference, if difference there were, between the footsteps. And if the person entering the second time were not the prisoner, to whose tread she was accustomed, and which she was expecting to hear, but if it were someone else—a man, let us say, with an entirely different tread, and a tread to which she was wholly unaccustomed—I say one would naturally expect the witness to note the difference instantly, to wonder who it was that had entered, to feel alarm when she heard the unknown stranger proceeding upstairs and into the bedroom; and, in short, one would expect her to get up and rouse the whole household to discover the robber, as she would naturally assume him to be.’

The jury were much impressed. A feeling of gravity spread all over the court. In the prisoner’s mind there was a sensation as if the sun had retired behind a cloud, leaving a leaden atmosphere all round her.

‘Leaving you to attach much or little importance, as you please, to that observation’ (jury puzzled again), ‘I will pass on to the point about which so much has been said—namely, the latch.’ (Jury bend forward with straining ears. They have felt this to be the difficulty all along, and are anxiously desiring to be told what it all means, and what bearing it has on the case.) ‘This latch, or rather lock, appears to have been of peculiar, though not unusual, construction. As you doubtless know, gentlemen, locks do differ very much from one another, and it is essential to their usefulness that they should do so. If all the locks on our doors were of the same pattern, one key would open them all, and consequently the locks would be rendered useless for the purpose for which they were designed. In ancient times, before such articles had come into common use, it was no doubt the custom to have a rude species of door-fastening, calculated rather to keep the door fixed in its place as against the violence of the weather, than to furnish any obstacle against the ingress of undesired visitors. But, gentlemen, we are not living in those times, but in our own; and we are here to administer justice, not with regard to the ideas prevalent among our remote ancestors, but with regard to the ordinary and reasonable practices of everyday life around us.’

This last part appeals to the jury. They nod their heads in approval, and wait for further enlightenment.

‘Law, gentlemen, it has often been said, is common-sense; and though there may be a sense in which that maxim is not strictly verifiable, yet in a broad and general way its applicability has never been and cannot be disputed. And, therefore, gentlemen, your common-sense will agree with me when I say that it is a lawful presumption—a presumption which the law warrants you in drawing and in holding till you have some satisfactory evidence to rebut it—that the person who obtains access to a house or any other building secured by a lock of this description must have in his or her possession a key which is capable of opening that lock.’

Continued approval of the jury. They find his lordship a little tedious perhaps, but sound. At last there seems a fair prospect of light being thrown upon the case.